CHAPTER 152

  ODDS OF FAILURE

  Adrian’s ascension did not end the battle.

  It equalised it.

  For exactly ten breaths.

  Then the guardians adjusted.

  The warlord who had clashed with Adrian no longer charged blindly. His aura condensed, refined, shaped into deliberate arcs instead of explosions. The three warlocks shifted positions without speaking, forming a triangular suppression field.

  The air was changing.

  Xandor noticed first.

  “Oh,” he hummed lightly, dark mana retracting half a pace. “They’ve stopped panicking.”

  The battlefield tightened like a noose around neck.

  Corpses that Xandor had prepared to claim were suddenly marked by sealing sigils. One of the warlocks slammed his staff down — threads of white light stitched through fallen bodies.

  The second corpse refused to rise.

  The third was sealed before it hit the ground.

  Xandor’s eyes narrowed slightly.

  “This is Annoying.”

  Across the battlefield, a horn shifted pitch.

  Not alarm.

  Signal.

  Deep inside the Node, arrays ignited.

  A voice cracked through mana channels.

  “Emergency. All Nodes respond. Council Node breached. Red demon commander present. Eclipse inside the perimeter. Possible Eighth Rank Knight confirmed—Theodred Atelier.”

  A blast interrupted the feed.

  The transmission resumed—closer to panic now.

  “Shield protectors down. Guardians engaged. Nodestone integrity uncertain. Request immediate reinforcement.”

  Another channel flared.

  “Grimgar responding. Alliance troops mobilising.”

  “Sunfall en route.”

  “Clandor ETA four hours.”

  “Concordia—deploy strong to Nodestone protection. Summon Nodemaster immediately.”

  Hans heard none of it directly.

  But he felt the change.

  The battlefield had stopped bleeding outward.

  It had begun compressing in.

  Across the volcanic domain Bryan had deployed, the lava began to cool unnaturally. Ice sigils embedded themselves beneath the magma. Steam erupted violently as suppression arrays activated under the terrain.

  Adrian swung again — a blazing arc that would have incinerated a battalion.

  The warlord met it with condensed frost.

  The explosion split sideways instead of outward.

  Redirected.

  Hans felt the shockwave hit his ribs even from distance.

  This was no longer chaos.

  The control was slipping through his fingers like sand.

  He lunged toward a warlock left exposed.

  He saw the opening.

  Calculated distance.

  Activated Maximacre.

  And then—

  Pain.

  A spirit construct he never sensed clipped his left wing mid-flight. Not enough to sever. Enough to disrupt his angle.

  The world spun.

  He corrected midair, barely, but the warlock had already shifted backward.

  Too slow.

  Too predictable.

  A second suppression glyph snapped under his boots, and gravity folded sideways.

  Hans slammed into the ground.

  He rolled instantly, avoiding a thunder lance that shattered stone where his head had been.

  He rose, breathing steady.

  But inside—

  A cold realisation hit.

  This battlefield did not belong to him.

  Xandor was fighting three warlocks simultaneously, terrain inverting under his dead mana blade.

  Krosh Arts. Still unbelievable.

  A tidal surge rose from nowhere, froze mid-air, shattered into a thousand spears — only to be swallowed by dark mana and reformed into jagged obsidian rain.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Eighth circle.

  Hans couldn’t even follow the formulas being cast.

  He was watching gods argue.

  And he was not one of them.

  “Damn it, I am useless here” he cursed looking at the edge.

  The frontlines.

  The mindless red demons had done their work.

  Too well.

  The Council forces had collapsed into tight defensive formations, using their own fallen as barricades.

  Zilong’s eyes swept the field.

  Then—

  He turned on his own summons.

  A beastly claw of condensed infection tore through three red demons.

  They fell.

  He harvested their cores without hesitation.

  Extra sunstones.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  Didn’t explain.

  Didn’t justify.

  A commander-grade did not waste assets. Not even his own

  He redirected remaining red demons into narrower corridors, tightening the pincer further.

  Pressure.

  Control.

  Containment.

  “Yes.” Hans assured himself. “The plan is not to win but to force Anfaleen to surface.”

  He gazed toward the centre of the fortress. Somewhere there Anfaleen was.

  Wings of Freedom, unfurled once again.

  The extra sword condensed of light in one hand while Reina’s gifted on other.

  “I’ll do my part.” He took the flight.

  Deep within the Node, communication arrays flared.

  Not panic now.

  Procedure.

  Council troops began withdrawing from non-critical places. Outer platforms were abandoned deliberately. Defensive lines shrank inward like a tightening fist.

  A mid-tier commander refused to retreat.

  He tried holding the entrance to main keep with thirty men.

  Bryan pummelled through them.

  When it ended, the keep’s entry was open to charge in.

  But as they charged, the first corridor had triple the wards.

  They were inside, but their enemies were learning.

  Xandor parried a spatial shear, dark mana spiralling around him like a storm.

  “Four hours,” he said casually, blocking a frozen spear mid-flight. “Sunfall arrives in five. Grimgar in eight.”

  Hans’ eyes flicked to him.

  “You intercepted their talk?”

  Xandor smirked. “I don’t need to intercept what dead screams so loudly.”

  A warlock sealed another corpse.

  Another body denied.

  The numbers stopped favouring Eclipse.

  Hans calculated.

  Aura reserves: sixty percent.

  Armis: untouched.

  If Anfaleen merges with the Node—

  He would need everything.

  If reinforcements arrive before Anfaleen surfaces—

  This becomes undoable.

  Not tactically difficult.

  Just failure.

  His trains of thought came crashing down together with his strongest card cratering the ground.

  The warlocks finally adapted to Adrian’s rhythm.

  A blade of crystallised frost pierced through Adrian’s shoulder, not deep — but precise.

  Blood hit lava.

  Steam erupted.

  Adrian did not scream.

  But his heartbeat faltered half a tempo.

  That was enough.

  The suppression finally hit them.

  It was recalibration.

  “You see it now, don’t you?” Xandor said lightly, blocking two warlocks simultaneously.

  Hans stepped beside him, cutting down a lesser mage attempting flanking pressure.

  “They’re buying time.”

  He paused.

  “We can’t have that.”

  A surge of aura built inside him.

  Armis whispered.

  He could activate it.

  Break the suppression field.

  Push the guardians back.

  It flared for half a second.

  Then vanished.

  He suppressed it.

  Cause if he didn’t—

  And Anfaleen entered at that moment—

  He would be empty.

  He lowered his aura instead.

  “I preserve,” he muttered.

  Xandor glanced sideways.

  “Wise.”

  “For once,” Hans replied.

  The battlefield that had once been Eclipse’s became neutral ground.

  No longer overwhelming.

  No longer crushing.

  Balanced.

  And balance favoured the defenders.

  Another guardian entered the field.

  Not charging.

  Observing.

  Evaluating.

  Hans felt it immediately.

  This was no longer about repelling invaders.

  This was about stalling until the reinforcement arrived and when the board was theirs.

  He glanced far at Zilong to the frontlines.

  Their eyes met briefly.

  No words.

  But understanding passed.

  Time was thinning.

  Hans’ jaw tightened.

  He killed three more soldiers with Fester.

  Watched them bleed.

  Watched infected finish them.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Not fast enough.

  Not decisive enough.

  The guardians regrouped.

  Eclipse regrouped.

  The field did not belong to anyone anymore.

  And far below—

  Mana shifted.

  Not violently.

  Not chaotically.

  But intelligently.

  Hans felt it.

  A pulse from beneath the structure.

  Not a spell.

  A mind.

  Deep below the battlefield, in a chamber insulated from sound and tremor, a boy sat with his legs crossed.

  He was trembling.

  At least, that was what the attendants believed.

  His fingers clutched the fabric of his robe. His shoulders shook faintly.

  “Master Aelok,” one whispered carefully. “The outer shields have been compromised. Should we move you?”

  The boy did not look up.

  “…Is father safe?” he asked softly.

  “Yes, Master. The specialised lab remains sealed.”

  A pause.

  The trembling stopped.

  For half a second.

  Then resumed.

  “Good,” he said quietly.

  When the attendants turned to issue further orders, none of them noticed the way his lips curved upward.

  Not fear.

  Anticipation.

  His fingers moving constantly in air.

  —

  Above, stone split under colliding aura.

  Hans felt it again.

  That pulse.

  Not wild.

  Not chaotic.

  Aware.

  “Come on, Deli,” he murmured under the thunder of collapsing stone.

  “Don’t disappoint me.”

  Above, reinforcements raced.

  Below, something awakened.

  And for the first time since breaching the shield—

  The odds tilted.

  Not toward victory.

  But toward failure.